Is this Unfair?

Parents Forum
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<p>Thoughts…</p>

<ol>
<li> I do agree that there are issues with cleaning up other people’s vomit that are not present with cleaning up a friend or relative’s vomit. Cross-reference the sex thread & Marian’s posts re: the link between binge drinking and STDs. If the RA wanted it cleaned up, I do think that it is his responsibility to help the students deal with this in a constructive manner. If he wants it cleaned up, he should say, “Go out and buy kitty litter, a dustpan, a brush, disinfectant, gloves, and trash bags.”<br></li>
</ol>

<p>If no one cleaned it up, the RA could have easily tried to work on that whole responsibility thing that everyone keeps talking about. He could have said that the culprit might not live on the floor; may be a friend of someone on the floor; maybe someone knows, maybe no one knows; but they are all responsible for keeping their hall clean. As such, assign everyone a task. Send a few students to the supplies closet or to the local CVS for gloves, trash bags, disinfectant, etc; he could have had a few other students clean it up; a few students bag and dispose of it. Draw straws and tell the ones who don’t have jobs that they are up next time something happens. The RA is getting a stipend or free housing or both for his job. He is more than able to use his position to keep order on the hall. He doesn’t have to clean it up himself (although, arguably, had he been doing his job on the night of the incident, he would know who did it!); he can encourage the others to do it.</p>

<ol>
<li> I remember being a poor college kid. $60 was a LOT of money to me when I was a freshman. I would have had to call home and ask for it (essentially on credit for later snow-shoveling or leaf-raking or lawn-mowing - you know, a good three snowstorms of a foot each or mowing a half-acre lawn four times); otherwise, it might not have gotten paid. I really HATE the assumption that parents who have money give their kids unlimited spending money. My parents paid my tuition, but everything else was one me. I do recall, vividly, being under a threat of $50 fines for things out of my control and wondering how on earth I would afford it.<br></li>
</ol>

<p>I disagree with ItsTooMuch’s analogy. Strongly disagree. When you drive a car and park at a meter, you are assuming the responsibility of leaving your car beyond the time and paying a set fine if you are late. I have never assumed the responsibility for people whom I do not know. It undermines and peverts the definition of personal responsibility to be liable for something outside of personal control.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Hanna gave a good analysis of the legal relationship and responsibilities. I do think she missed one big issue, however: the legal ramifications of cleaning up the mess. If I’m an underage kid, hear the lecture, and think, “Apparently, no one else is going to step up so I have to be the adult,” and I clean it up, I am, in essence, admitting that I was smashed and puked the night before. At some schools or in some dorms, it is grounds for getting kicked out of housing. In other situations, it would be a permanent mark on one’s file and result in probation, loss of certain privileges, getting kicked off the athletic teams, etc. I would strongly discourage any student from doing something that opens himself up for a punishment for something he did not do. </p></li>
<li><p>Considering that the culprit may not even live on that floor, I find it to be a very untenable position. If, truly, no one on the floor threw up there nor knows who did it, why should they be punished? </p></li>
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<p>Marian has made some excellent points. I like her letter.</p>

62

<p>mini said:

</p>

<p>I said:

</p>

<p>then mini said:

</p>

<p>You changed your premise, mini. Suddenly you are not lumping every kid into one category. Glad to see you’ve decided to be less of a judgmental, knee-jerk, reactionary on this issue. That’s real progress. </p>

<p>I still fail to see how wealth makes a kid callous & likely to leave his vomit around. Don’t any of those Pell grant kids you always refer to ever drink or behave badly?</p>

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<p>Before everyone gets into a lather about this, the OP’s son should determine if it is a dorm charge or an fine for each resident. I seriously expect that it is a dorm damage charge which will probably amount to less than $1/resident.</p>

<p>Our son had such a charge tacked on his frosh spring term bill amounting to a little more than a buck.</p>

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<p>Originaloog-the OP has already said that each boy was fined. I don’t think there’s any question to be determined here.</p>

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<p>someone on that floor knew who did it, and if they all say, no not us, then it was one of their visitors, and if they don’t know who was visiting, then there is an other issue altogether, strangers hanging around dorms</p>

<p>so unless it was magic vomit that flew in to mess with that dorm, it was someone know to someone</p>

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<p>Happened in my daughter’s dorm. They were fined for cleanup - I think it was around $3 each.</p>

<p>At the end of the year, everyone got a bill for damages to the dorm - there were things broken in the elevator - holes in the wall from nails, etc., etc. I think the total was around $18.</p>

<p>$60 is just ridiculous and I would not pay it.</p>

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<p>"I still fail to see how wealth makes a kid callous & likely to leave his vomit around. Don’t any of those Pell grant kids you always refer to ever drink or behave badly?</p>

<p>I have no idea whether the wealthy ones are more callous (though you said they were spoiled.) I have no idea who drank or behaved badly. I DO know, that wealthy ones can afford $60 more than poor ones. Now that’s a radical idea. Duh. So what’s your point?</p>

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<p>

The point is that for the bajillionth time, your bias against kids who come from wealthy families is showing, and it is no more attactive or excusable than ANY other kind of bias. My own kids do not come from a wealthy family, but I do not assign negative traits to those who do, SIMPLY because they do. ~berurah</p>

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<p>Kids, kids!</p>

<p>Mini–you know SS didn’t call them spoiled; but rather that she was saying that you were implying it. Your critical thinking is too good to rely on easy, forced misreadings because they give you a haha.</p>

<p>Berurah–I think his point wasn’t that it’s more likely that wealthy kids did it, but that the fine will hurt them less than non-wealthy kids, so it’s unfair in that way.</p>

<p>If Dad gives you an unlimited bank account, what’s 60 bucks? But if you’re working workstudy for meal money, 60 bucks is huge.</p>

<p>OKay, have I ticked off everyone?</p>

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<p>garland~</p>

<p>With all due respect, and respect <em>is</em> due :slight_smile: , I believe that mini’s views toward the wealthy students who attend elite schools is well-substantiated–or maybe you missed the pages and pages and pages and pages of references to “man-boys with baskets” on the Duke LAX thread, a thread in which he continued to imply that those rich LAX players simply felt entitled to take what they wanted from a struggling black mother only trying to survive, when now, it’s pretty universally known that they didn’t do any such thing.</p>

<p>What he says here:

implies that so-called “rich” kids do not value money and take for granted that which they have been given. Perhaps that is true of some, just as it is true of others who feel entitled to my husband’s and my taxpayer money to support their poor choices on the other end of the SES spectrum.</p>

<p>I stand by what I said…that blanket condemnation of <em>ANY</em> group is ugly and uncalled for.</p>

<p>~berurah</p>

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<p>It doesn’t at all suggest that rich kids don’t value money. It simply says what it quite obvious: $60 for many students at certain schools IS pocket change. Come on, your son attends Duke - tell me truthfully that he doesn’t know many students for whom that is true. (It is certainly true for my stepnephew.) (He’s not a “man-boy with basket”, though; he’s a “man-boy with flyswatter.” ;))</p>

<p>But that’s precisely what is wrong with “collective punishment” - it treats all those who are part of the collective (which the students may not have chosen to join) exactly the same. That is ugly and uncalled for, and the college (whichever it is) should be ashamed.</p>

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<p>In this case, we are not wealthy. We sacrifice every day to put our S through this school. ALL spending money, fines, etc. are on him. If he needs more than he can make in the summer, he will have to find a job. Not every parent whose child attends an expensive school just send them money. Also, my S will get out owing for part of his education too.</p>

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<p>Same here. And that’s exactly the point - all the students are being treated exactly the same, even though, when it comes to money, they obviously are not.</p>

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<p>

OOPS! My bad! I must have been reading something unintended into:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>However, to ME, that implies EXACTLY what you said—that since they have the money and money is not an issue, then they DO NOT CARE. In other words, they do not care about the loss of the $60.00 OR the fact that they were fined unfairly.</p>

<p>For <em>my</em> son, it would be a principle thing…whether the fine were a penny or a thousand dollars, he would be indignant at having to submit a fine for a destructive act which he did not commit. The amount itself would be irrelevant.</p>

<p>And yes, my son at Duke has friends who both receive and do not receive financial aid. And he has said that in many instances, he has not known which was which for a VERY long time. I guess that says much about his taste in friends, huh? ;)</p>

<p>~berurah</p>

<p>and p.s…I’m with you… I LOATHE group punishment of any kind.</p>

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<p>There are many students who could care less. And many for whom the money wouldn’t matter. And many who would be concerned about the principle, even if they could care less about the money. And many for whom there wouldn’t be a principle involved. And many for whom it could be a hardship.</p>

<p>As they clean up the feces at my alma mater, they spend more on custodial services. Instead of a fine (if they can’t figure out whom to fine), the room and board charges go up. Or the funds are taken out of returns on the endowment or alumni giving. There isn’t a check-off box on my alumni fund form that allows me to contribute to the cleanup fund. No principles are involved - or so it is portrayed. Instead of the kids paying it, their parents do - or the scholarship fund does.</p>

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<p>how many students truthfully are making so much money- that double what most workers make an hour is meaningless to them?
Sure- some parents make a lot more than that= but those are the * parents* not the kids= how many wealthy parents are giving their kids allowances in college?</p>

<p>Its been my experience, that people don’t get wealthy when they don’t know the value of a dollar- actually I have found the reverse to be true</p>

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<p>“how many students truthfully are making so much money- that double what most workers make an hour is meaningless to them?”</p>

<p>Students with an annual $8k clothing budget provided? Or who received a $55k Beemer for high school graduation? Now I’m NOT suggesting that to ALL of these $60k would be meaningless. Just a signficant enough subset. </p>

<p>But the reality is that, regardless of how they “feel”, there IS an objective difference in the value of $60 to a student with a family income of $25k and one with $300k - I don’t think there is anything particularly radical in that thought.</p>

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<p>So mini, students with wealthy parents should be fined $60, and the others perhaps $10? Some kind of sliding scale? Perhaps we should interview each student to see if they “care less” about the money or not. My non-financial aid kid would care a lot about $60 out of his pocket.</p>

<p>It seems most colleges are now assessing floors or dorms collectively for damages if no one stands up to take responsibility. My son had to pay $35 for cumulative damage to dorm common areas at the end of the year. I’m sure the original thought was that assessing the group fine might force disclosure of the guilty party but from what I’ve seen at my son’s school and this thread that doesn’t seem to work.</p>

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<p>I started to PM mini on this but figured it was cowardly so I’ll come out and say it. I see what she means, in a way. My kids have been on scholarship at a private hs for years and there is most definitely a difference in attitudes toward money between the “rich” and the “others.” First of all, the parents are unaware of who is or isn’t on scholarship. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked into the eyes of another mom who has referred to “those kids on financial aid” as being drains on the school, or pulling the school down. (BTW, both mine have graduated at the top of their classes and been leaders athletically, academically, extracurricular, etc). My son’s essay specifically told about when he was, as president, planning a dance and the kids wanted a $100 per head extravaganza. When he argued that not all the kids would be able to go, the response was- who cares? Or how about the time the kids were throwing eggs in the parking lot to celebrate the end of school. When I complained about the damage they pooh poohed me as a pain in the a** because my kids were sharing a 10 year old clunker car. (After all, most of these kids get a brand new car on their 16th birthday- now THAT would be something to be concerned about, if their cars had been damaged!) For grad night we were told we had to pay $400 for our kids to participate. I could go on and on. These things are done routinely like it’s no big deal. There is most definitely a difference in the way my kids and these kids view money.</p>

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<p>“as for “landlords”- they are NOT responsible for taking out YOUR garbage, cleaning up YOUR spills and messes and if you think they are, wait till you rent an apartment”</p>

<p>I rented apartments for years and I am now a homeowner. It isn’t MY garbage, MY spills, or MY mess that’s at issue. If one of my fellow condo owners pukes in the lobby, you better believe that I’m not cleaning it up. The building has to, because maintenance of shared areas is its responsibility, and it has a cause of action against the PUKER or his host for the cost of cleanup if it comes to that. I don’t vacuum the hallways or wash the lobby windows, either. And the OP’s son is likely in the same situation; unless we’re talking about a co-op, cleaning the bathrooms is usually NOT a shared responsibility for dorm residents.</p>

<p>“if YOUR friend vomits all over the shared areas, you will be responsible and if it happens more than a few times, your lease may not be renewed”</p>

<p>RIGHT – if it’s MY friend. But the OP’s son knows nothing about this puke, and he shouldn’t be punished either by a fine or by having to clean it up. If a landlord tried to evict me because some OTHER tenant’s guest damaged property, he’d find himself in court very rapidly.</p>

<p>aries, you bring up an important issue. It’s true that cleaning it up might be seen as an admission of responsibility, which could have severe consequences.</p>